Read today…rewrite your tomorrows

Playwright and screenwriter Neil Donnelly will be in Leenane Library on Friday night 15th June 2007 at 8.00pm when he conduct an exploration of some of the interesting fiction and poetry to be found on the shelves of Leenane Library.

Among the books to be found in the Leenane library is a new edition of Don Quixote. This book was a bestseller when it first appeared in 1605 and has continued to sell ever since. In 2002, 100 major writers from 54 countries rated Don Quixote the world's best work of fiction. This new translation has been delivered in plain but plentiful contemporary English. It has been said that this Don Quixote can be read with the same ease as the latest Philip Roth.

Also in the library is Giovanni Guareschi’s famous Little World of Don Camillo. Guareschi’s series of Don Camillo novels humorously detail the perpetual competition between a village priest, Don Camillo, and the village's Communist mayor, Peppone, as they vie for the villagers' favour.

You will also find Dante’s Inferno, a book that has inspired readers for 700 years, and has entered the human imagination.

Also in the library is In memory of My Feelings, a selection of the poetry of Frank O’Hara. O'Hara's poems made poetry seem as natural as breathing. He liked composing on the run, living in the heart of noise. He dashed off numerous poems on his lunch break. O’Hara, who is of Irish ancestry, spent many years working at The Museum of Modern Art in New York before his untimely death in 1966. The book was edited by the poet Bill Berkson who invited thirty artists who had known O’Hara, ranging from Willem de Kooning to Claes Oldenburg, from Joan Mitchell to Jasper Johns, to produce works to accompany his poems. It is a beautiful book.

Neil Donnelly will also look at and read from the book Watching the River Flow, a fine anthology published by Poetry Ireland, which offers an extensive survey of a century of Irish poetry.

Come along and join us for an enjoyable evening in Leenane on Friday evening June 15th. Admission is free.

Impac Dublin Literary Award

The winner of the International Impac Dublin Literary Award will be announced on 14 June.

Sebastian Barry's book 'A Long Long Way' has been shortlisted for this year's award. Eight novels are featured on the shortlist for the €100,000 prize, including books by Salman Rushdie, JM Coetzee, Julian Barnes and Cormac McCarthy.
The Impac, which is the world's largest literary prize for a single work of fiction, is chosen from nominations submitted by libraries around the world.

Last year, novelist Colm Tóibín became the first Irish writer to win the award with 'The Master'.

This years shortlist includes:

'A Long Long Way' by Sebastian Barry
'Arthur and George' by Julian Barnes
'Slow Man' by JM Coetzee
'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' by Jonathan Safran Foes
'The Short Day Dying' by Peter Hobbs
'No Country for Old Men' by Cormac McCarthy
'Out Stealing Horses' by Per Petterson
'Shalimar The Clown' by Salman Rushdie

Introducing some of the interesting fiction and poetry to be found on the shelves of Eyrecourt Library

Playwright and screenwriter Neil Donnelly will be in Eyrecourt Library on Thursday night, 14th of June 2007 at 8.00pm when he will introduce and talk about some of the interesting fiction and poetry to be found on the shelves of the library.

He will look at and read from Robin Skelton’s selections from the work of Six Irish Poets including Austin Clarke and John Montague.

He will talk about Ferlinghetti’s ‘A coney island of the mind’, a book that has become a modern classic. It has been translated into nine languages and there are now three quarters of a million copies in print.

He will also take a look at the book ‘Innovations’, a collection of stories which brings together some of the most interesting and innovative American fiction writers since the 1930s.

Ovid’s epic poem Metamorphoses – whose theme of change has resonated throughout the ages- is one of the most important texts of the Western imagination, will be introduced. This new translation gives us an Ovid for our times and reminds us that in our times Ovid is everywhere.

There will be a brief reading from James Joyce’s brilliant novella Portrait of the Artist as a young man, the exhuberantly inventive, coming-of-age story on the relationship of an artist to his family, culture and race.

And we sold the rain, short stories from Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua which powerfully evoke life in these countries, will also be looked at.

There will be readings from the work of the Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez (1910-1042), a poet whose works ‘beams with a gentleness of heart’



Poems by Anna Akhmatova, Russia’s finest woman poet, will be available. Akhmatova’s theme was always love. The simple lyricism with which she developed her theme is unequaled in contemporary Russian verse.

Come along and join us for an enjoyable evening in Eyrecourt on Thursday. Admission is free.

There Are the Words

There are the words that couldn’t be twice said,

He, who said once, spent out all his senses.

Only two things have never their end –

The heavens’ blue and the Creator’s mercy.

Anna Akhmatova

Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, August, 2000 Edited by Orit Bonver, August 2000

Bulgarian Ambassador visits Ballinasloe Library

On Thursday May 17th the Ambassador of Bulgaria, Her Excellency Mrs. Bisserka Benisheva, visited Ballinasloe Branch Library for the official opening of an exhibition entitled "The Cyrillic Alphabet: The New Alphabet of the European Union."
The opening reception was hosted by the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria. Also present from the Embassy was Third Secretary, Mr. Petar Semerdzhiev.

The Ambassador was welcomed to the Ballinasloe Library by Mr. Noel Treacy, TD, Minister of State, with Special Responsibility for European Affairs.

At some point of time, more than 11 centuries ago, Constantine Cyril, the Philosopher, came to Pope Adrian 11 to defend the right to existence of the alphabet he had created---it's sanctity and spiritual meaning, it's validity alongside the Hebrew, the Greek and the Latin alphabet.

Through the exhibition, one discovers not just the way and manner in which the Old Bulgarian alphabets were built, but also the beauty and meaning of a descriptive graphic and poetic symbolism, whereby space, the stars, the rise of the sun, the sea and the land were the foundations for its being brought down to earth for the needs of the enduring human communication.
In the course of his address, Minister Treacy said that "the entry of Bulgaria into the EU means that Cyrillic has now become the third Alphabet in use, in the EU and will contribute another rich and ancient strand to the cultural life of the Union." And he continued: "we are also proud of Ireland’s long association with the Basilica of San Clemente in Rome, where the sacred remains of Saint Cyril are buried. For over three Centuries, the Basilica has been in the care of the Irish Dominicans."

At the opening reception, a poem entitled The Whole World, written by the Bulgarian poet Anton Baev was wonderfully read by Ballinasloe teacher John Boland. This beautiful poem describes a man who is coming back from the market, with the poet asking: "what is he carrying in his bag?" Oranges from Piraeus, it seems, lemons from Egypt, a bottle of tequila from midnight Mexico, a packet of sugar from Brazil.... And the poet concludes: "A shopping bag is enough to hold half the world in it," and he asks: "And what would you need for the whole world?" And the poet’s response is: "a kiss on the threshold when you arrive."

There is something in this poem which connects with "our enduring need for communication." There is also something of what the Spanish writer Adela Cortina describes as a "profound sense of compassion." She points out that it is important to educate citizens in all these dimensions of the heart, especially in the dimension of justice — because otherwise the game is lost before we start. This is an area of education where the public library, through a carefully selected book collection, has a vital role to play.

The heart (cordis in Latin), is the centre, the key to something: to people, for example. Traditionally, it is the home of affection, but also of intelligence, spirit, talent, and even the stomach. Because you have to have stomach, a great deal of it, to fight for justice, and to aspire to happiness, which are the two great goals of ethics. It is important to educate citizens in all these dimensions of the heart. So said Adela Cortina writing this very week in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.


Copies of Adela Cortina’s essay are available at Galway City Library and at Ballinasloe Public Library.

The exhibition and visit by the Bulgarian ambassador was made possible by the Europe Direct Information Centres.

Readers may be interested in the following books which have been added to stock at Galway City Library

The Novellas of Hortense Calisher, by Hortense Calisher
Includes The Railway Police, a dazzling story, told in her own wry first-person voice, of a social worker's frustrated progression through a series of admiring men attracted by the colourful wigs she wears, then repelled by the fact of her baldness. One day, upon seeing an obviously homeless man ejected from a train, she throws away her piles of fake hair, gives all her money to her indigent clients and goes forth to sleep in the streets, embracing the anonymity of those who have been discarded, as she now discards herself.




Last Evenings on Earth, by Roberto Bolano
"The melancholy folklore of exile," as Bolano once put it, pervades these fourteen haunting stories. His narrators are usually writers living on the margins and grappling with private (and often unlucky) quests. Set in the Chilean exile diaspora of Latin American and Europe, and peopled by Bolano’s beloved "failed generation," these stories are unimaginably gripping.



Here Is Where We Meet, by John Berger
One hot afternoon in Lisbon, our narrator, John, finds his mother, who had died fifteen years earlier, seated on a park bench. "The dead don't stay where they are buried," she tells him. And so begins a remarkable odyssey, told in simple yet gorgeous prose and with the openness to personal and political currents that has always marked John Berger's work. With its clarity and beautifully proportioned contours of fictive memory, this book makes the perfect site to encounter Berger for the first or 50th time.

John Boyne has won the CBI Bisto Book of the Year 06/07 for his book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.


The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is John's first book written for children and tells the story of a nine year old boy struggling to understand what is happening around him in Auschwitz during World War II. The novel has been shortlisted for many literary awards including the British Books Awards.



The Eilis Dillon Award went to Siobhan Dowd, for her first novel of A Swift Pure Cry.

An eagerly anticipated event on the Irish literary calendar, the CBI Bisto Book of the Year Awards are presented annually in recognition of excellence in writing and or illustration of books for young people. The awards are administered by CBI, the national organisation for children's books and sponsored by Bisto (Premier Foods Ireland). Over the last three years the total prize fund for the awards has more than doubled, with a current total prize fund of euro 19,000 as compared to euro7,000 in 2005.

Last Over The Edge: Open Reading’ before the summer break

The final‘Over The Edge: Open Reading’ before the summer break will take place on Thursday, May 31st, 6.30-8pm in Galway City Library.

This month’s Featured Readers are Maria McManus, Paddy Henry & Fergal McNally.

Maria McManus is a poet and playwright from Strangford near Belfast. Her collection ‘Reading the Dog’ was published in 2006 by Lagan Press and was runner for this year’s Strong Award. In 2005 she was awarded the Bedell Scholarship of Literature by the Aspen Writers Foundation, Colorado. Her plays include His n‘Hers, The Black Out Show and Nowhere Harder. She is currently writer-on-attachment to Tinderbox Theatre Company.

Paddy Henry writes both fiction and non-fiction. He retired to Galway in 1998 having been a soft drinks manufacture in Charlestown, Co. Mayo. He continues his life long interest in drama through his involvement with Knocknacarra Amateur Theatre Society. He is a member of the Knocknaccarra Active Retirement Writers Group facilitated by Susan Millar DuMars.

Fergal McNally moved to Galway in 2003 to study Arts. He is currently enrolled on the M.A. in Writing program at N.U.I.G. He has had poetry published in Ropes magazine and Writers Seeking Lovers, a collection put out by the M.A. in writing poetry workshop. His one act play Spilt Milk won best production at this year’s Muscailt arts festival.

There will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details contact 087-6431748.

The first Over The Edge: Open Reading after the Summer break will take place at Galway City Library on Thursday, August 30th.

An imaginative and beautifully illustrated book for children

Wolves by Emily Gravett, which won the 2006 Kate Greenaway Medal, is an imaginative, cleverly illustrated and delightful picture book for 5 to 8 year olds.
It follows a rabbit who goes to his local "burrowing" library to check out a book on wolves. As he immerses himself in the book, he fails to notice that the characters have actually come alive.

Kirkus Reviews commented "that like many postmodern picture books, the mixed-media illustrations call attention to the book itself, and establish a relationship between the deadpan text and the endearingly expressive rabbit."

Emily Gravett was born in 1972 in Brighton. She left school with few qualifications and spent 8 years living on the road before settling back in Brighton and getting a place on the BA Illustration course at Brighton University.

The following is an extract of an interview with Emily Gravett from the PanMacmillan website:

Why do you think picture storybooks have such an important place in young learners' lives?

The time that parents spend cuddled up looking at, and discussing picture books with their child can foster a warm association with books that spills over into their adult lives, but picture books are not just about producing fluent readers. Picture books teach children visual literacy, the relationship between word and image, about emotion, the physical world, and the world of the imagination. They are about getting lost in the moment. They can be exciting, or challenging, sad, or soothing, but all at the child’s pace. They can be picked up, put down, carried around and re-read hundreds of times. There’s no other medium like them. They enrich children’s lives.

There are copies of the book in our Branch Library System. Teachers may wish to note that there are 8 copies of the book in the School Library Network.

Poetry Reading at Inishbofin Library

As part of the Inishbofin Arts Festival award winning poet Yvonne Cullen will read from her own work and from the work of other poets in the local library at 5.30pm on Saturday May 12th 2007.

Yvonne Cullen's first short collection of poems, Invitation to the Air, won the American Ireland Fund Award at Listowel Writers' Week in 1997. Yvonne has won numerous other awards for her work. She has also won praise from the National Awards Council for her Writers' Workshop facilitation skills, and has been a regular Poetry Workshop leader for a number of years now. Born in Dublin, Yvonne Cullen trained as a barrister before giving up Law to become a full time writer and musician.

In order to provide opportunities for participation, after the reading there will be an Open Mic event. At this any visiting poets, aspiring poets, writers, and other performers are welcome to join us to share their work or art.

Day of Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture being celebrated in Ballinasloe Library

An exhibition entitled "The Cyrillic Alphabet: The New Alphabet of the European Union" will go on display in Ballinasloe Library for a two week period commencing Thursday May 10th.

The exhibition will be officially opened at 7.00pm on May 10th. The opening, which is being hosted by the European Direct Information Centre and the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria will mark the Day of Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture.

The opening reception will include readings of Bulgarian poetry in English translation, and a performance of Irish Traditional Music.

City Library now open through lunch-time on Saturdays

We are pleased to announce that the City Library in Augustine Street now remains open during lunch-time on Saturdays.

The City Library, which up-to-now closed at lunch-time on Saturdays, will now be open on Saturdays continuously from 11.00am through to 5.00pm. The complete opening-times for the City Library are here.

Bealtaine Festival in Tuam Library

During the month of May, Tuam Library celebrates the Festival of Bealtaine, a celebration of creativity for older people, a festival designed to embrace life long learning.

On Tuesday 1st May: Author and Broadcaster John Quinn will read from his work in the library at 2.00. A session will also take place at 11.00 for the book club who are reading ‘Sea of Love, Sea of Loss’ for this month’s book.

John Quinn was a well-known broadcaster with RTE Radio for over twenty years, for which he won numerous awards. He is an established children's author whose work includes 'The Summer of Lily and Esme' (which won the Bisto award in 1992) and 'Duck and Swan'. His first adult novel 'Generations of the Moon' tells the story of a family saga of sectarian strife along the Border from 1926 to 1975, a powerful story of nurture working against nature. His non-fiction publications relate mostly to his radio work, 'My Education' interviews 39 people on their formative years. His gift as a maker of programmes...described as 'Interviews of rare clarity, sympathy and sophistication; doctumentaries of extraordinary atmosphere, perception and narrative grace...'

Following the untimely and tragic death of his wife Olive in 2001, he bared his soul to help others in his personal documenary on their lives together, 'A letter to Olive' . 'A letter to Olive' is published under the title 'Sea of Love, Sea of Loss'

Tuesday 15th, Tuesday 22nd and Tuesday 29th May: Seniors Tai Chi will take place at 11.00 and Beginners Meditation will take place at 12.00 in the library. For more details, please contact the library at 093 24287.

Age Action is running computer classes for beginners, every Tuesday from 10.00 11.00. To book a place, please contact Age Action at 091 527831.

All events are free to attend.

Japanese Artist exhibits his work in Spiddal Library

An exhibition by Hiroto Hakamada, a visual artist from Japan, is currently running in the Public Library in Spiddal

Born in 1968 in Okayama, Japan, Hiroto studied oil painting in Musashino Art University, Tokyo. Subsequently he studied photography and film making in Tokyo. He has held several solo exhibitions and group exhibitions in Japan. This exhibition in Spiddal is his first show in Ireland.

The grounds of his artworks are made of lead and red clay from Okayama - his hometown in the west of Japan. He printed black-and-white photographs taken in Ireland, Italy, Syria, Jordan, Singapore, China and Japan directly on the grounds. He also drew his inspiration from his childhood memories: an image of a small village deep in the mountains in Okayama where his father was born and bred, his relatives who still live there and their daily life in the mountains.

The exhibition runs until Sunday 29th of April. Spiddal library opening times are here.

THREE POETS IN A MUSEUM

Three Galway-based poets, Crannóg magazine's Sandra Bunting, playwright, poet and painter Patricia Burke Brogan, who is a member of Galway Writers' Workshop and poet and publisher Ciarán Parkes, Marram Press, will pay homage to the new Galway Civic Museum over the next couple of weeks by wandering around its exhibits and rooms and reacting to what they see through poetry.

The project, initiated by the Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoir Chaitlín Maud - will culminate in a series of nine poems, three poems from each writer, to be framed in an exhibition in the new museum.

"My hat is off to Breandán Ó'Heaghra of the Museum, who took to the concept immediately, and to Sandra Bunting, who worked without hesitation to gather the poets," says Fred Johnston, the Centre's manager. "Without these elements, it couldn't have happened. It was a simple idea and therefore an attractive one." It is important, he continued, that Galway's contemporary literary world is commemorated as a living element in the new Museum.

The new Galway Museum was officially inaugurated in December 2006.

Exhibition of new works in Tuam Library

Artist who depicts the current tensions between Man and Nature exhibits in Tuam Library.

The Cows Beyond, an exhibition of new works by Eithna Joyce opens on Thursday 26th April at 6.30p.m. in Tuam Public Library and runs until May 5th.

Eithna is an emerging artist and Galway County Libraries are very pleased to host her first solo exhibition since her success in ev+a 2007, Ireland’s pre-eminent annual exhibition of contemporary art. She was selected from over 500 entries to be part of 32 Irish and International artists currently on show in Limerick until 24th June. She is one of only two Irish artists who received a curatorial award from Klaus Ottmann, this years adjudicator for the ev+a exhibition.

"What are we doing to the environment and what are we leaving for the next generation?" These are the issues which Eithna Joyce ponders.

Eithna draws on a blank canvas with pen and ink and then paints in oils mixing realistic and abstract images to create a tension within the picture, mirroring the current tensions we find between man and nature.

Flosca Short Story Competition
and
Flosca Irish Language Poetry Competition

This event will feature readings by poet Louis de Paor and novelist Mike McCormack, with an introduction by Caroline Walsh, Literary Editor of The Irish Times.
Flosca Teo is a new web-based publishing company, founded by writers, with the mission to provide outlets for new work by writers in Ireland and abroad. Our website, http://www.flosca.com/, offers forums for writers to post and discuss new work online.

The April 29th reading marks the opening for submissions to the Flosca Short Story Competition and the Flosca Irish Language Poetry Competition. We will be accepting short stories (3,500 word limit) as well as original poetry written in Irish language (100 line limit). Each first, second, and third place winner will receive cash awards, as well as publication in our Prize-Winners’ Chapbook, to be launched in 2008.


Flosca was founded by fifteen writers who met while attending NUI Galway's MA in Writing programme. Members of Flosca come from Alaska, Ontario, Mayo, Offaly, Nevada, Sussex, Cork, Sligo, New York, Illinois, Clare, California and of course, Galway. We joined forces to create Flosca Teoranta in 2006 with the support of dar s na Gaeltachta. Our aim is to support writing of literary merit and to promote the best international writing in different forms – poetry, fiction, non-fiction-- through whatever channels are available to us, whether through the website or print publishing, depending on what is most appropriate. Flosca also aims to identify gaps in the competition market including Irish language, debut writing and the longer short story.

*[fluh-ska] --noun: the Irish genetive singular for flux: a flowing or flow; the flowing in of the tide; continuous change, passage, or movement; the rate of flow of fluid, particles or energy; a quantity expressing the field of force in a given area

Death of Kurt Vonnegut : Libraries and Books

Influential author Kurt Vonnegut has died at the age of 84 after suffering brain injuries in a fall in New York.
During a career lasting more than 50 years, he wrote the classic anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, detailing his experiences of the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945.

Here he is writing in 2005 from his A Man Without a Country: A Memoir of Life in George W Bush's America, published by Bloomsbury.

'I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country (the United States), have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.And still on the subject of books: our daily news sources, newspapers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books do we learn what's really going on.'

Vonnegut said he was often surprised to have lived for so long, having been a heavy smoker. He once joked: "I'm suing a cigarette company because on the package they promised to kill me, and yet here I am."

Cúirt International Festival of Literature

The 22nd Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway will take place from Tuesday 24th - Sunday 29th April 2007.


The programme for 2007 was unveiled recently.

On 25 April, the prose masterclass will be hosted by MJ Hyland, who was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Carry Me Down.

The poetry masterclass will be hosted by Bostonian writer Nick Flynn on 27 April, and poet Brendan Cleary will host the performance poetry masterclass on the same day.

Pete Mullineaux will be MC for the fifth annual Cúirt International Festival of Literature Poetry Grand Slam with guest performer/judge Brendan Cleary.

The full schedule of readings, events and masterclasses is available here

Over the Edge Reading in Galway City Library

The next Over The Edge: Open Reading takes place in Galway City Library, St. Augustine Street, Galway on Thursday, March 29th, 6.30-8pm. The Featured Readers are Michael Gorman, and four members of the Dark Gate Writers Group, Sean Donegan, Margaret Cullagh, Bernadette Tierney & Donal Grehan.

Michael Gorman was born in Sligo and educated at Summerhill College and University College Galway. His poetry collections include Postcards from Galway, Waiting for the Sky to fall and Up She Flew. One of his poems, The People I Grew Up With Were Afraid, was chosen by Pauline McLynn for inclusion in the anthology, Voices and Poetry of Ireland. He teaches poetry on the MA in Writing at NUI Galway. Michael Gorman is a hugely charismatic reader of his work; his readings are everything a good poetry reading should be.

Sean Donegan has published poems in Poetry Ireland Review, Time Haiku and the anthology, The Backyards of Heaven. A selection of his haiku will appear in an anthology to be published by Pillar Press, Kilkenny next year. He is a member of The Dark Gate Writers Group.

Margaret Cullagh is originally from Tipperary, but currently lives in Galway. She is the facilitator of The Dark Gate Writers Group. She is a writer and creative writing tutor and has read her work at both the Westside Arts Festival and the Project 06 Festival.

Bernadette Tierney is a Galway native. She was a volunteer worker for many years with the Simon Community. Her poems have appeared in Riposte. She is a member of The Dark Gate Writers Group.

Donal Grehan is originally from Mountmellick in Co. Laois and has been living in Galway for 20years. He writes poetry and short stories. His poems have been published in Bealtaine. He is a member of The Dark Gate Writers Group.

As usual there will be an open-mic when the Featured Readers have finished. This is open to anyone who has a poem or story to share. New readers are always especially welcome. The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details contact 087-6431748

More Galway events in Library Ireland Week

Here are further events taking place during Library Ireland Week in libraries throughout County Galway.

Galway City Library
Tuesday 6th March 10am – 12am. Exhibition of Ceramic Work by local VTOS Students.The students will demonstrate glass painting

Tuesday 6th March 11.30 – 12.30. John Quinn, well known author of The Summer of Lily and Esme and other titles will talk to students.

Wednesday 7th March & 8pm. International Women’s Day will be marked by Amnesty International, public discussion on "Trafficking Violates Women’s Rights". Diarmuid Hogan, NUI Galway will chair the discussion.

Thursday 8th March ‘6.30. Fred Johnson, Writer and Manager of the Western Writers Centre will talk on the Uses and Abuses of Literary Workshops.

Friday 9th March @ 7 pm. Dermot Healy, Author of A Goat’s Song and The Bend for Home will read from his work.


Loughrea Library
Tuesday 6th March @8pm. Jo McDonagh, past President of the GAA will talk on the history of the GAA.

Tuesday 13th March 8.30. Concert of Choirs

Sunday 4th March @ 8pm. Maynooth Guitar Ensemble


Ballinasloe Library
Monday, March 12th @8pm. A lecture on the Battle Of Aughrim by Dr. Harman Murtagh.This is the 7th in a series of 9 lectures organized by the Historical and Archaeological Society of Uí-Mháine during the winter months.

Márta 6-17. Taispeántas éalaine ó réamhscoileanna an cheanntair le haghaidh Seachtain na Gaeilge agus Lá'L Pádraig

Europe Direct Centre open days for adults and children...call in and see how the Europe Direct Centre works, access the Europa website, browse through our selection of brochures and leaflets.